One of the foremost sculptors of the twentieth century and an important pioneer of kinetic art, Calder is celebrated for his innovative use of formal elements more traditionally associated with drawing or painting—line, color, and flat, geometric shapes—as the building blocks of his sculptures. The artist developed a passion for gouaches early in his career, through which he furthered his interest in the expressive potential of linear and planar elements. Here Calder created an ebullient composition in which floating circles pierced by feathered arrows evoke the cosmic imagery that underlies much of his abstract vision.

Bibliography

John Wilmerding et al., American Art in the Princeton University Art Museum: volume 1: drawings and watercolors,(Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2004).